offered to display them. I was glad to find myself at rest at last; and
although events pressed on me fast and thick enough to have occupied my
mind, no sooner had I laid my head on my pillow than I fell into a sound
sleep.

CHAPTER XXI. THE ECOLE MILITAIRE

Let me now skip over at a bound some twelve months of my life,--not that
they were to me without their chances and their changes, but they were
such as are incidental to all boyhood,--and present myself to my reader
as the scholar at the Polytechnique. What a change had the time, short
as it was, worked in all my opinions! how completely had I unlearned all
the teaching of my early instructor, poor Darby! how had I been taught
to think that glory was the real element of war, and that its cause was
of far less moment than its conduct!

The enthusiasm which animated every corps of the French army, and was
felt through every fibre of the nation, had full sway in the little
world of the military school. There, every battle was known and conned
over; we called every spot of our playground by some name great in
the history of glory; and among ourselves we assumed the titles of the
heroes who shed such lustre on their country; and thus in all our boyish
sports our talk was of the Bridge of Lodi, Arcole, Rivoli, Castiglione,
the Pyramids, Mount Tabor. While the names of Kleber, Kellerman,
Massena, Desaix, Murat, were adopted amongst us, but one name only
remained unappropriated; and no one was bold enough to assume the
title of him whose victories were the boast of every tongue. If this
enthusiasm was general amongst us, I felt it in all its fullest force,
for it came untinged with any other thought. To me there was neither
home nor family; my days passed over in one unbroken calm,--no thought
of pleasure, no hope of happiness, when the fete day came round. My
every sense was wrapped up in the one great desire,--to be a soldier; to
have my name known among those great men whose fame was over Europe; to
be remembered by him whose slightest word of praise was honor itself.
When should that day come for me? When should I see the career open
before me? These were my earliest waking thoughts, my last at nightfall.

If the intensity of purpose, the strong current of all my hopes, formed
for me an ideal and a happy world within me, yet did it lend a trait of
seriousness to my manner that seemed like melancholy; and while few
knew less what it was to grieve, a certain sadnes